Here’s one of the hurry up and wait parts of the surrogacy process. My insurance review was done last Wednesday. I verified with the agency that they did receive the report from ART Risk (the insurance review company). I feel like they tend to get busy towards the end of the week so I didn’t expect to hear anything more last week. I was however very much looking forward to an email this morning telling me the next step. I was bummed when there wasn’t anything. I have no problem being the initiator though (I probably drive them nuts to be honest) so I sent a quick email asking what the next step is and if I needed to be scheduling anything. I obsessively checked my email all day, but resigned myself to waiting another day when I hadn’t heard anything by 2pm (the agency is based on the East Coast so it would have quitting time for them). About 45 min later I got a reply giving me an update.
Due to what’s going on in the US with health insurance things are kind of up in the air a bit. Pregnancy may end up being considered a preexisting condition which means I would have to not be pregnant when my potential IPs purchased insurance for me during open enrollment which isn’t until this fall. The update was that they have been figuring out some insurance options and have been emailing “the guys” about them! I had no idea that they had been communicating about me yet! I’m really hoping that my lack of usable insurance isn’t a deal breaker for them. I know that they are super anxious to get things going as they already have frozen embryos ready to go. I’m also super anxious to get things moving! So right now I’m just waiting for something to happen LOL
When I asked if the insurance thing would cause any delay, T didn’t seem to think it would cause much of an issue just because there’s still a lot of things to get done before I’d be ready to transfer. I still have to actually find a match (please cross your fingers that the one in works is “the one”!), which means a Skype meeting with potential IPs and agreeing that we want to work together. Then my records would have to be reviewed by the IPs fertility clinic and if accepted I would have to fly to that clinic and had a medical screening. After med screening, if I’m cleared, we would start contracts. Once the contracts are signed the clinic would set up my medication schedule, set a tentative transfer date and I would be cleared to start cycling. Then comes A LOT of monitoring appts at a local clinic and lots of medication. Finally would come the transfer that we would all cross our fingers would work on the first try.
The way things move in the surrogacy world all that will take some time. Like I said, I am anxious to get things moving and was originally hoping that I would be able to transfer in late August, early September. That’s still a possibility if pregnancy doesn’t become a preexisting condition. If it does I’m probably looking at a Nov/Dec transfer (at least I’m hoping that’s as late as it would be). I have seen stories where surrogates are matched for a year or more before any transfers take place. Obviously that’s not ideal, but I’ll have to see where the surrogacy road takes me.
I’ll update when I have something new 🙂
I'm Just The Stork 